QUICKIES: You have no idea.

Heeyyyyyy!  I decided (I do that alot huh?) that I'm going to rid my brain and numerous random word docs of these crazed plot bunnies that are threatening to distract me from my on going stories.  Trying to cleanse myself of these damned things running a muck, it came to me to make each and every one into a short story.  Short meaning 10-15 pages TOPS.  But instead of calling them shorts, I have dubbed them (in true NightTempest fashion) QUICKIES.

So get ready for paranormal and purely human, warlocks and a dude with a flat tire, horror and some possible precious moments kinda crap that will make you teary eyed.  Some will have nothing more than a hot fuck against a wall and some stories will bring two soul mates together.  Some will end with a murder and some will end with unicorns and rainbows.  So get ready for the craziness....

That said I give you the first, possibly, sort of edited...QUICKIE.

P.S. let me know if this font is better.  I have no idea what's going on with it but if it reads better to you, let me know!

YOU HAVE NO IDEA

My hands were shoved deep into my pockets in thought on the walk over to Adam’s house.  Even after making this walk from three houses over to his place a million times for the past eighteen years, this was the first time I thought about turning around and running home.  My neon blue vans sent a few pebbles skidding across the road as I stopped across the street from his house.  Two weeks ago we had huddled together on the floor of his bedroom playing Xbox and laughing our asses off and now...I felt sick to my stomach just looking at the place.

The simple one story ranch style home was nothing special. Ordinary beige siding, a decorative railing encased a small front porch, and a few potted hydrangeas greeted you at the door.  Looking at it now though, it seemed much less inviting---the small lamp post at the end of the drive like a warning sign to all gays that enter here.

But I had come this far and I couldn’t turn back now.  Oh, I’d made it down my driveway or maybe half way to his house before flaking out for the past two weeks but not today.  I had to face him.  I had to know where things stood between us now…that he knew. I had to tell him how angry he'd made me.  How much he hurt me.  But on top of all that, I still wanted to be near him.

Did I still have a best friend?  Would he still room with me in the fall at Berkeley?  I snorted. Yeah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  Like Adam would want to sleep in the same room as a gay guy--- much less his best friend that was a liar and had been in love with him since kindergarten. 

I pulled my thin black hoodie off my head and ran a shaking hand through my short black hair.  The sun was going down in a little bit and the wind was picking up, making me rub my arms.  A light went on in the last window to the right---his room.  Deep breath Tory, you can do this, that sliver of hope in me chanted away.  You’ve been through too much together for him to just let you go.  Just because he doesn’t love you like that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still love you as a brother.  He won’t leave you.  He’ll forgive you for not telling him.  He'll have a good reason for why he let them do what they did.  Maybe he didn't...stop thinking Tory!

Rubbing my hands together, I stepped off the curb and jogged across the street, holding up my jeans that wiggled down my ass. The sound of my vans slapping onto the porch made me sick and the knots in my stomach began to double in size. Do it Tory.  If you don’t do it now, you know you never will.  I was considering turning around when Sassy, the Hessman’s golden retriever started barking away, knowing someone was outside the door.

Before I could even think about an escape, the front door opened and Gloria Hessman stood there looking at me.  Adam’s mom was a natural beauty and never wore a speck of make-up.  Her light brown hair always swept up into a twist was neat as ever and her green eyes smiled before her lips did.  Drying her hands with a dish towel, she kept Sassy back with a foot. 

“And where have you been?  I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without you,” she chuckled.  “Adam said you were helping your Dad a little bit at the store but I never thought you’d actually go MIA.” She blew a hair out of her face and put the towel on the hall table.  I didn’t know what to say.  Helping Dad at the store?  Yeah right.  He’d lied to her about me.  He didn’t want me here.

“Come here,” Gloria protested my silence and pulled me into a hug.  “You’re like one of my own and I worry about you sometimes.”

“I’m cool Mrs. H.  Just busy is all.  You know uh, I just remembered that I have to run somewhere for mom but will you tell Adam that I’m sorry I uh...couldn't uh...”

She pulled back and put her hands on her hips. “Non-sense, you can tell him yourself.  He’s just in his room.”

“No that’s alright. It’s getting dark and I really need to run that…”

“Since when do you run errands?” Adam appeared behind his mother, his football worthy arms crossed at his chest.  His sandy hair was a mess like he’s been sleeping on his side and his inherited green eyes looked tired but angry---little dark circles underneath them.

“I…” my mouth was dry, I had no words.  I felt like a trapped animal with the need to flee.

“You…uh what?” He clipped with sarcasm and my eyes watered with hurt.

“Adam? What is your problem?  Tory, come on in honey.” Gloria insisted but I shook my head, eyes on the poured concrete.

“I have to go,” I whispered and turned around and started across the yard. That bastard. That fucking bastard.  This was it.  He hated me, I could tell. I know him like the back of ny hand and that was hate.

“Tory?” Gloria’s voice was full of concern and I heard her take a step after me. 

“Tory!” Adam shouted and I started to run.  I knew it.  I knew I never should have come out. Nobody wanted me.  My Dad didn’t understand and thought I was intentionally ruining my life.  My mom was too busy with her real estate testing to give a shit and the one person that I had counted on the most, now looked at me like everyone else did---a monster. 

I couldn’t do this anymore.  Fuck everything, I was out of here.  Two weeks of torture at school because I had shared my first kiss with the wrong guy. Two weeks of silence between Adam and I.  Because the guy that had kissed me was Adam’s football buddy.  Two weeks of punches and kicks after school from the jocks that called me a liar and Adam had never said a word.  Two weeks of flat tires and over the net slashing.  Two weeks of disconnecting myself from life.  Two weeks was enough for me to know I had lost my place here.  I was no one to him anymore.  What the hell was I thinking coming here?

“Tory!” Adam screamed behind me and I heard his bare feet gaining speed on the pavement.  Tears blurred my vision but I ran faster, I had always been faster. 

I jumped the railing at the end of the culdesac---feeling the bruises under my clothes protest with pain---and cut through the field behind our subdivision.  We had always played here when we were younger---he had always been at my side.  We had been inseparable.

“Tory!” His scream was choked this time but I couldn’t turn around.  He’d left me for torture with those jocks.  They’d found my journal in my backpack. They’d told Adam I loved him.  He’d turned his back on me for it.  Why was he chasing me?  Was he going to hurt me too?

My lungs burned as my legs pumped, my jeans slipping between my fingers where I held them up as tight as I could.  My brand new vans that I had saved every penny for were black with mud from the fresh rain and I cried harder.  I didn’t see the thin tree root popping out of the dirt in front of me but I felt my foot lodge underneath it and I felt my face hit the ground. Fuck.

“Tory!” Adam screamed in panic and I felt my ankle swell in pain. There was no use moving now.  I’d broken it or hopefully just sprained it but for sure it was in a world of hurt.

Adam’s large form dropped down next to me---his knees digging deep into the muddy ground.  He didn’t care about his clothes or his fancy sneakers that his dad had just given him.  Adam slowly pulled my foot from the rooted trap and gently placed my twisted ankle down into to the cool mud.

I moved my face around to look at him and he was shaking his head with wide watery eyes.  “Why did you run away?  Did you think I would...” he trailed off and wiped his arm across his eyes, smudging dirt over his face.

He reached for me and I flinched.  “Do you think I’d ever hurt you?” He asked pulling back his hand, disbelief in his eyes.

“You already did,” I whispered.  “Maybe not with your own hands but you let them do it.  See this?” I pulled the hoodie to the side, exposing my shoulder.  Dark purple and yellow splotched my skin.  The ugly colors ran over my entire right side.  The side that had been turned towards them as they reigned blows on me from above.

“Tory…” he breathed.  “Who did this? Oh fuck.  Who fucking did this to you?” He raged and his eyes went feral.

“Oh right.  Good one.  Like you don’t fucking know!  I never.  Ever!  Thought you could be so cruel.  You were my best friend Adam.  You were all I had!  You were it,” I died off and started to tremble with waterworks. 

“I would never hurt you.  I had no idea Tory.” Adam sounded so sincere.   “You were avoiding me after I found out.  I thought you were embarrassed and needed some time but then you just stopped looking at me in the hall as if I wasn’t there.  Or when you did it was like you hated me.  I had no idea it was because you thought I told them to…” He shook his head and wiped the heel of his hand across his eye. 

“I got into a huge fight with Jay the day he told me about the notebook and how you were lying about him kissing you.  I knew it was him.  We all knew it was him.  Because you’re not the first guy he’s kissed, Tory.”

“What?” I was flabbergasted.  Jay Kingston was the quarterback of the football team and model worthy with three girlfriends at the snap of his fingers.  I thought I had been some experiment to him because honestly?  I had no idea what I was doing. He was my first and most likely my last. After Jay, I didn't want to ever do that again. 

“Yeah.  I caught him making out with Hugh Ott at football camp last summer. And then Freddy saw him with some guy from Glenn Oak at the Homecoming after party. From the sounds of it, Jay was doing a lot more than kissing,” Adam rumbled and stared at his fingers in his lap.

I pushed up away from the ground and twisted my body to sit on my ass.  My ankle was throbbing but I kept my grimace to myself.  I wanted to hear this from him.  I needed to hear it.

“Was Jay your…first?” Adam murmured and I noticed how his hands clenched until his knuckles went white.

“First what?” I wanted to be on the same page here and I wasn’t about to use the words sex or gay in any context when I didn’t even know where this was going.  Or if he was mad at me.

“Did you let him…did he? Shit T… Fuck it.  Did you sleep with him?” Adam looked up and his nostrils flared.  His eyes searched mine and I sat back in wonder.

“No.”

His exhale was loud, his hands unclenched and smoothed over his knees.  His broad shoulders rolled back and let out some tension.  “Good.” He nodded. Why the fuck did he care?  What was this!

“Adam?” He looked at me with tears in his eyes.  “How could you not know about Jay and the others? You see them every day after school.  I know they talk.”

“I quit,” he blurted and I gasped. 

“What? Why?” Football was life to Adam Hessman.  He was built for it, born to play.  For him to quit meant something big had happened. 

“For you,” he whispered and I shook my head in confusion. 

“For me?”

“Yeah for you.  You said eighteen years wasted.  No.  They weren’t.  You say I’m all you have?  Well ditto Tor.  You mean a lot to me.  A lot a lot.  Some fuck wad says that you seduced them, shares your biggest secret with the world, and drives us apart?  Fuck. Them.  I’ve shared finger paint and worm digging with you.  I’ve shared broken legs and puberty with you.

 I’ve snuck you in my window when your parents started screaming.  I’ve held you while you slept because you couldn’t stop crying.  I’ve shared every game---win or loss---with you because you were always there, front and center.  You are my best friend Tory and if I had to listen to another minute of the shit coming out of their mouths, I would’ve ended up in jail for murder.  I knew about the verbal stuff and I told them knock it off but I swear to you Tor, I had no idea about this…” He reached out and delicately brushed my hoodie to the side.  I turned my face away from his in shame. 

“You should have told me from the beginning.  About how you felt,” his voice was low and quiet. His fingers didn’t leave my skin. I turned my dark eyes to him and was confused at the look he was giving me.

“Adam?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, staring at my bruises.

“Why did you ask me about…what we did together?  Uh, Jay and I? The mud drying on the side of my face covered part of my blush.

“Because he doesn’t deserve you,” Adam replied matter of fact and moved a few inches closer to me---his fingers moving up to my neck and then behind my ear.

 My heart hammered in my chest.  His knees touched mine and the breeze blew the grass towards the setting sun.  I loved Adam Hessman and I always had and this was the kind of moment that made it hard to realize he would never love me back.  His sandy blonde hair did this weird wave over his forehead and was still flat on one side.  His big strong chest rose and fell with every breath and with him just being near I felt warm and safe.  But all of that would never belong to me.  I had to get over it and move on.  Adam would possibly, always be my friend but we would never share that part of ourselves together.

“Tory?” His thumb brushed over my lips and I startled.  “What are you thinking about?”  What was I thinking about?  I was thinking how he needed to stop always touching me because it only made my heart break further.  Always with the hugs and the pats, the hair ruffles, and the thigh touching.  He always had to be touching me but in a close knit way…not in a romantic way. It tore me up.

“Adam, will you do me a favor?” 

“Yeah,” he whispered and I wanted to die at the sound of that sexy rumble.

“If this is going to work...if going to get over you…” I started.

“What?” He pulled back with shock.  “Get over me?  What does that mean?”

“It means I’m gay Adam.  It means I think about you all the time and that when you touch me it hurts because I can never touch you back like I want to!” I sucked in a breath with mortification.  Well talk about laying it all out.

Determination seeped into his eyes and he raised a brow.  “Then touch me.”

“Excuse me?” Obviously baffled, I leaned back to make sure I hadn’t hit my head harder than I thought.

“How do you know how I feel Tory?  You never told me how you felt about me.  You always pull away when I touch you.  You avoid talking about dating or anything romantic.  But above all of that…you’ve never asked me how I felt about love.  Think back Tory.  Have I ever had a girlfriend?”

“You said you were waiting for the college girls…” My eyes were wide.  What the fuck was happening?

“I’m eighteen, I’m a football player…right.” He rolled his eyes.  “Have I ever told you how hot I thought a girl was?”

I looked to the side in thought.  No…he hadn’t but maybe he didn’t want to share that shit with me.  We never talked about sex or girls...or boys. It was just something neither of us seemed to open up about.  “You told your football buddies I’m sure.”

“Wrong again.  Have I ever taken anyone but you to dances, weddings, or parties?” He folded his arms again and looked me dead in the eye.

“Okay, I don’t understand…we’re best friends, we do all that stuff together.  It happens.” My brows knitted together in confusion.  Adam shook his head and sighed.

“Every summer I take you with me to the cabin in Hyatt and what’s the first thing we do?”  He wouldn’t stop staring at me.

I flashed back to his face turning over his shoulder with a sly smile as he dropped his cargo shorts and bared his ass before running off the dock and diving into the water.  He’d call me a chicken and whistle through his teeth to take it off.  He’d watch me as I shyly stripped and hid my hard dick with my hands before jumping in the warm water.  He’d swim close to me and circle me like a shark.  I’d always thought it was my imagination---that look in his eye that I was daydreaming about.

Seeing the recognition in my eyes, he continued. “I wait all year for those five minutes on that dock with you.” He swallowed and ran a now shaking hand through his hair. 

“I search for months, every year to find you those vintage comics you love for your birthday.  There isn’t a dealer in Charleston like I said,” his voice cracked.  “I drove three hours to pick up the last one from a private collector.”

I couldn’t breathe and tried to grasp onto what he was trying to tell me.  My ankle throbbed as my blood pumped faster trying to keep up with the beat of my heart.

“When you raved over that cologne at the mall a few months ago, I went back and bought it because I wanted you to rave over me.  I wanted you to like the way I smelled…”His knees pressed hard into mine and his upper body leaned forward a little more.  “You have no idea how I feel about you Tory but I always knew you loved me.  I didn’t need to see your journal.  I already knew.”

“I figured you’d tell me when you were ready but I didn’t think I’d have to wait this long or go through this to get you to admit it.  Then again, if I’d told you first...you would have never let him touch you.  God Tory, I feel so guilty… All of this is my fault,” he apologized in his own way and his fingers found mine. He laced our hands together and I shivered. 

“I am so sorry they hurt you.  I’m sorry that I didn’t think you needed me, when really you needed me the most.  I’m sorry that you thought for one second that I would ever leave you behind. I never meant to make you cry,” he confessed and lifted his head---tears ran down his cheeks.

Finding my voice in the face of a life altering opportunity, I finally told him face to face so he would know.  Something that was sure to make him stop crying…even if he just stared at me for a while.  “I love you Adam. I love you in an ‘I want you to kiss me, hold me, make love to me, and share my life’ kind of way. How do you feel about that?”

Seconds of silence felt like hours as the sun finally went down and the air got colder, I felt my heart sinking.  But that changed as a beautiful smile lit up his face and he wrapped a hand around the back of my neck---pulling my lips closer to his.

“I think it’s about time,” he whispered and kissed me like he meant it.

~~~~~ Ten Years Later~~~~~~

God, I hated moving.  All the boxes, the random labels that at the time you scribbled them---you thought you’d be able to decipher  them later.  Now standing in the bedroom, I opened a box marked knick knacks---as if that gave me any hint to what was in here.  I struggled with the tape, fought with the box cutter, and nicked my middle finger on a sharp edge before the damn thing opened.

The subtle crashing of waves drew my eyes to the open doors next to me and my bleeding finger was suddenly worth it.  Moving to live on the ocean?  Not so bad.  With a smile, I turned away from the blue waters and clear sky---back to the evil box on the bed.   I sucked my finger into my mouth and peeled back the cardboard flaps. 

My heart dropped as I spotted the old Van’s shoebox that had been marked up with band stickers and childish doodles.  Before opening the thing, I smoothed my hand over the box that held so many memories.  This damn thing had managed to stay with me for the last ten years and I had been so careful to hide it, sometimes I forgot I even had it. 

I ignored everything else in the knick knack box and peeled the old shoebox lid off.  A ribbon tied pack of Polaroids, a bottle of Aqua Di Gio that would forever remind me of the summer before my freshmen year of college, and…a pair of dirty blue van’s sneakers.  Tears came to my eyes every time I saw them because that was the day that forever changed my life.

I wiped a tear away and shook my hands out with a laugh. God, these damn things got to me as if I had just watched Steel Magnolias.  Then again, I was always crying---you know us sensitive types.  I picked up the bottle of cologne and smiled then laughed.  Fucking, Adam and this damn stuff.  He had worn that shit all summer long until I finally told him he didn’t have to use half the bottle to get my attention. 

Then came the pictures---the ones from that summer at the cabin.  Boy had that been a different kind of trip, just me and Adam and no shyness between us.  Those six weeks had been beautiful, innocent, and terrifying all at the same time and I wouldn’t trade those days for anything.  Looking at the two of us trying to take a picture as he kissed my cheek, I felt the tears roll down again. 

“Babe?”  An all too familiar voice made me close my eyes with a smile.  “Are you okay?  You’re crying.”

“I’m fine,” I replied quietly and hummed with approval as he wrapped his arms around me from behind.  His lips pressed to my neck and his hips swayed us back and forth gently.

“Are those…I’ll be damned.  Where did you get those?” He turned me in his arms before thumbing away my tears.  Adam pulled the pictures out my hands and with a huge grin started flipping through them.  “I’ll never forget that summer…” He shook his head, still smiling like an idiot.  “You were…and I was…shit it was so hot babe.”

“Wait.  Why were you crying though?” My husband laid the photos on the bed and stepped into my body.  His larger hand rubbed circles on the small of my back as his green eyes looked at me with concern. 

“Tears of joy,” I sniffled and smiled.  “How do you feel about that?” I bit my lip and he eyed me with a naughty grin.

“I feel that this box needs to get off our bed, so that we can put our teenage selves to shame,” he murmured and licked my lips slowly.  I groaned and pushed the cardboard off the bed, letting whatever else was in there spill onto the hardwood floor.  We tumbled back onto the stiff sheets that still had those ugly lines on them from being folded in the package.  But neither of cared about the bedding as he pulled my low slung jeans down with one yank.

“You’d think after ten years you’d get a damn belt,” he laughed and I grabbed his ass.

“Are you complaining that you can get my pants off quicker Mr. Hessman?” I rolled over and pressed my now naked ass into his jean clad erection with a laugh.

“I guess not…” he groaned and slowly pulled his pants off---taking his sweet time.

“Adam!” I protested.  I hated how he teased me even though I knew he was just as hard as I was.

“Chill babe,” he ghosted the words across my back and I felt his thick erection slide between my ass cheeks.  “I have all day to show you how I feel about you.”

THE END